


Fragments of the Eternal Throne

by InFamousHero



Series: Fragments of The Knight [5]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Canon Divergence, F/F, Fix-It, Fluff & Angst, Force Bond (Star Wars), Hurt/Comfort, Mental Health Issues, Redemption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-03
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-09-03 20:02:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 5,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8728261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InFamousHero/pseuds/InFamousHero
Summary: A collection of shorts and drabbles detailing parts of KOTET as filtered through my interpretation of my Jedi Knight turned "Sith" Knight storyline.





	1. Creations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Valkorion keeps trying to mess with K'Surda's head and she's growing increasingly sick of what he has to say.

"You did this! You made her this way!" K'Surda snarled before he could finish his sentence. The sheer audacity would have made her speechless if she wasn't so angry at his attempt to distance himself from any influence, any blame, any sort of indication that Vaylin's violence and cruelty was entirely a product of  _his_ manipulations. "It's all you do, you twist people into monsters and watch them for entertainment!"

"Is that right?" Valkorion slowly looked back her, leaving the frozen image of Vaylin sitting on the throne behind.

His eyes bored into her and K'Surda clenched her fists, snarling at him, "I wouldn't expect you to even comprehend what you do. You don't even think like any normal person, you think you're my ally, that you've never been my enemy! How? All you've done is orchestrate harm against me or the things I care about!"

"And you attacked me in my sanctuary."

"You had to be stopped, you were doing nothing but cause harm."

"Then why are my children any different?"

K'Surda switched her attention to Vaylin on the throne, her forearms bare and marked with black ink. She could feel the malevolent intent buried in them, feel  _his_ influence lingering. Arcann's shocked look flashed through her mind and she shook her head. He knew all too well about drowning.

 Valkorion chuckled, looking out at the stars. "You don't have an answer because they are  _no_ different."

She glared at his back. "You're a monster who murdered his way through life because it amused him. Not because you were broken or tortured or screwed around as a child but because it  _amused_ you and you wanted to see how far you could push your power. They didn't get a choice. They suffered your amusements and your games because there wasn't a way out. They were children. Children rely on their parents for guidance and you murdered yours. Vaylin and Arcann are products of you."

He didn't look at her, only responding with an amused, "as are you."

Fire burned through her veins and she stepped towards him, back straight. "I'm not your puppet," she growled.

Valkorion turned his head to regard her with one molten eye. "No, but I find your protestations intriguing, if trivial."

This world around them shifted and they stood on Voss's burning surface once more. "Was this world not doomed since you first walked upon it? Was it not you who left it to be ravaged by madness in your wake? What difference does her attack truly make when you sealed its fate years ago?"

The words cut through her like razor wire. "I did," she said coldly. "But I'm not about to be judged by you."

"I do not judge, I commend. Your destruction was for a purpose, to overcome a perceived foe. This is wanton destruction, a torch where fine tools would have served better."

"If you care so much for precision maybe you should have taught her better instead of breaking her."

"I'm sure if you try hard enough, Vaylin will stop trying to kill you just long enough to see you proven wrong. You cannot fix her."

She bristled, her gut twisting on itself in a furious, hot coil. "Enough!"

Time resumed and the hot, ashen air of Voss-Ka came back to her. K'Surda blinked, felt Lana's hand on her shoulder, and turned away from the landing area where Arcann once stood.

They had work to do.


	2. Monsters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lana knows something cut K’Surda deeply on Voss and it isn’t the first time it's happened.

“What happened on Voss?”

Yellow eyes flashed, looking at her in surprise, bewilderment, and a spike of fear shot across their bond. K’Surda paused in stirring her caf and she looked away to the door of the galley. Lana stayed where she was, watching all traces of the bold and immovable Alliance Commander melt away and leave K’Surda a scared youth. She knew Lana wasn’t asking about Vaylin’s attack.

She’d been quiet, distracted, withdrawn, the same way she acted whenever they encountered something from her past as a Jedi Knight. It happened when they removed the Star Fortress threatening Voss, but Lana refrained from asking at the time, it didn’t seem relevant.

This time she knew it was something to do with Valkorion. She felt his presence flare and K’Surda’s emotions spiralled like razor wire. Suddenly K’Surda had looked at Voss with renewed horror, eyes turning glassy and off-focus, and they left quicker than normal.

“I…” K’Surda finally took her eyes from the door to Lana’s feet. “When I was chasing Vitiate’s servants I followed one of them to Voss. He was preparing a ritual to spur everyone on the planet to a homocidal rage, a mass slaughter to set off a chain reaction across the galaxy. He tried it on Belsavis too, but that was a different method.”

“And what happened to that ritual?”

“I stopped it. But he was using an entity to set it off, an evil being called Sel’makor. It was the reason for the nightmare lands and the madness afflicting Voss and Gormak alike. There were Voss allies with me who wanted to destroy it after I killed Vitiate’s pawn.”

Her mind clicked the pieces into place and Lana held her tongue as K’Surda continued, she already knew where this was going. “It reached out to me, told me it could give me enough power that I wouldn’t have to fear him again. If I just… interrupted. I killed the Voss, fed the mystic to Sel’makor and cut down the soldier. She was supposed to end Sel’makor, sacrifice herself to wipe it from existence and I stopped that. I destroyed any chance of anyone doing that.”

Lana frowned lightly. “To defeat Vitiate. You thought he would destroy the entire galaxy.”

The look K’Surda gave her was sudden and cutting, like her voice. “I was scared and angry! I wasn’t thinking of the galaxy, just _him_  and what he would do to me if he controlled me again!” She looked at the floor, deflating just as soon as her outburst started.

She felt like a brand, sizzling, burning, and in dire need of quenching.

Lana closed the gap and took the cup from K’Surda’s hands, an easy matter as they went limp as soon as Lana took the weight of it from her. She reached up and took K’Surda’s jaw, supporting it with her palms until K’Surda looked at her. Tears were fast gathering in her eyes and Lana frowned deeply, cursing Vitiate’s existence for the thousandth time.

K’Surda reached up and grasped her wrists, grimacing. “One way or another, that world was going to die. Even after the fires go out, Sel’makor is still down there and I let him live. I can’t fix that.”

There were no words. Lana knew K’Surda wouldn’t brook an argument on this and just pulled her down until their brows touched, swaddling K’Surda’s rampant guilt and self-loathing until it was tolerable.


	3. Onomatophobia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> K’Surda witnesses another layer to Valkorion’s manipulation of Vaylin.

_“Kneel before the dragon of Zakuul!”_

Vaylin’s expression cracked instantly and K’Surda froze, watching as horror and confusion dawned on the girl’s face. She wanted to strike, her desire to strike burned like a shackled star, but she _couldn’t._

As Valkorion explained what happened, K’Surda swallowed hard to push down the rising bile in her throat. Her stomach churned and she staggered back, sabres still out, until her heels tapped Lana’s battered form.

_Lana._

Her breath grew tight in her chest, watching Vaylin panic and struggle to fight her father’s control over her. Drowning, she was _drowning_ again. The sensation washed over K’Surda with the care of icy deluge.

She tried to breathe and look away, but she couldn’t tear her eyes from Vaylin’s face. A myriad of frantic, maelstrom emotions raced through her and K’Surda was stuck, frozen like a ship in ice, her mind slipping into a familiar trench of sapping shadows.

_Lana!_

There were breaks, bruises, she’d felt them with every throw, every collision. Numbness fluttered through her and she blinked, trying to brush the dizziness away. Her breaths were too short, too quick, her heart was pounding. _Breathe_ , she had to control her breathing.

Valkorion finally left them and the void of his presence dispersed.

Molten orange eyes bored into her, wide, panicked, uncertain–K’Surda swallowed again, struggling against the saliva gathering in her mouth. Her stomach lurched in protest.

“It feels like drowning,” K’Surda whispered. “Doesn’t it?”

Vaylin flinched away from her. Staggering, Vaylin looked around at her surroundings like a lost child and turned, sprinting off into the ship.

K’Surda dropped her sabres and fell to her hands and knees, voiding her stomach. Cold sweat beaded on her brow and she trembled, clenching her hands.

Every moment he controlled her flashed through her mind, a litany of blood and ashes, of people begging and the blur of red and white as she cleaved open another of his enemies. She would sink and keep sinking, strangled by ice and the crushing depth.

His servants helped maintain it, she struggled every step of the way for nothing, fighting only for the water to fill her lungs.

Her stomach heaved again.


	4. Stay of Execution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is shorter than usual, but it's how K'Surda dealt with Vaylin in chapter 8. I'll elaborate on what actually happened in a later entry.

“You won’t take the Eternal Throne from me! It’s mine!”

“This was never about the throne! He wants me to kill you!” K’Surda roared over the storm of energy Vaylin was unleashing, cutting her spirit and body like a thousand tiny blades against ice. She kept pushing through, steadily closing the gap between them as a frantic idea sprung to fruition. If she was going to try anything, now would be the time.

Vaylin grinned at her, but it was forced, strained, there was no satisfaction. “Then your time’s running out!” _Do it._

The words brushed across her mind and she internally flinched, pushing deeper into the storm, closer to its source.  “I’m not giving him the satisfaction!” _If your brother and I can be saved, so can you!_

There was no response for that, Vaylin just stared at her, wild-eyed, her expression fixed, the storm growing worse. K’Surda felt cuts open on her face and pushed the last few steps. She reached out and grasped the energy around her, coiling it in her hands as she threw her arms around Vaylin and locked her arms against her sides.

The storm tore at her, running through her like Vitiate’s lightning years ago. It was cold and it burned her, but still she held on, redirecting the energy to her will. They both screamed and K’Surda barely kept her mind aware, trying to focus on what she was doing. What she was _trying_ to do.

Valkorion did this. He made Vaylin this way, claimed it was better for everyone, that he had done the galaxy a mercy by shackling her. But K’Surda knew him better than that, whatever he claimed, whatever ‘greater good’ he professed to serve by doing what he did…

It was self serving, nothing more. He was afraid of Vaylin, of her potential to overpower him because under Senya’s guidance…

Maybe she would have made as benevolent an Empress as Valkorion was perceived to be, once upon a time, and it would have meant something.

With an electric snap the storm collapsed on them and K’Surda felt a surge of power wash over her. Vaylin shrieked and went limp in her arms. The strength was knocked out of her like a brick to the stomach and K’Surda collapsed, darkness rapidly removing her from the waking world.


	5. Power Sink

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s been three days, scattered reports have begun to trickle in about rampaging Eternal Fleet ships on various fringe worlds. But K’Surda and Vaylin have yet to wake up…

“And what exactly do you suggest?”

Theron froze as she looked at him, very aware that right this moment she wasn’t a far cry from a tuk’ata mother over her pups. Lana stood with her back to K’Surda, arms crossed, positioned so she had a view of everyone in the room.

They’d been arguing since they moved K’Surda and Vaylin to the medical bay.

“Well,” Theron stared, glancing between the two beds. “We could… poke one of them with a needle and see if the other reacts?”

Lana closed her eyes, sinking her brow into her palm. “Theron…”

“What? You said they might be connected and neither of  us want either of our _good_ doctors taking a jab at it. Figuratively speaking.”

“I don’t know the nature of their connection. Causing pain may not illicit a reaction.”

“Can’t you do some meditative force thing to check?”

Lana sent him a hard look. “I tried earlier. I was rebuffed.”

His tone of voice became cautious. “By…?”

She looked away from him, frowning deeply. “Whatever is going on, neither of them are welcome to outside interference. I don’t think I was recognised.”

Theron stepped up beside her, staring down at K’Surda’s prone form. “She must be in deep.”

There was no doubt about that. Whatever K’Surda had done simultaneously connected her to Vaylin and siphoned the majority of her power. Though Lana wasn’t entirely convinced the latter wasn’t the work of Valkorion. She could think of a few reasons for K’Surda to do it, but none of them made enough sense and K’Surda didn’t have that complex an understanding of such rituals. No, this crude and hasty work.

Be that as it may, it seemed to work. K’Surda was powerful enough to pull it off or she might have destroyed Vaylin and severely damaged herself in the process.

Lana forcibly relaxed as she found herself grinding her teeth. She wasn’t going to help K’Surda by fretting, but it was hard to swallow her concern.

Senya and Arcann kept visiting, hoping for news either way, but without the ability to look inside there was nothing to go on. Senya seemed stricken, conflicted over Vaylin’s survival.

_“She feels so weak now…”_

There had been hope in her voice, that less wild power would make it easier to help Vaylin without her breaking the room or throwing doors at people. Lana knew that wasn’t what K’Surda had been thinking, all she ever thought about when she saw Vaylin was Valkorion and herself.

Her actions on Voss and her manipulation of a fellow jedi were the clearest examples of Valkorion’s influence twisting her into something she wasn’t supposed to be. K’Surda had never been comfortable with using the force to mentally manipulate people ever since she was a padawan, even for ostensibly ‘good’ results.

To then experience mind shattering control had to be especially devastating and Lana knew it to be so.

Her blood boiled at the mere hint of Valkorion’s presence flaring and she turned sharply, staring at K’Surda. Her brow was furrowed, swells of fear and anger slipped through their bond.

Lana clenched her hands and sat down, settling into a meditative posture.

Theron peered at her. “I thought you said-”

She didn’t look up at him, closing her eyes. “That isn’t what I’m doing.”

No, she couldn’t try to infiltrate whatever was going on. But she _could_  reach out to K’Surda alone and bolster her. Whatever was going on, she knew K’Surda needed it and it was exactly what she would provide.


	6. Memory Breaks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the outside world falls away, K’Surda tries to help Vaylin find an anchor in her past…

“I still remember my mothers, he tried to destroy those memories too, change them into something they weren’t so I’d forget who I was.”

K’Surda turned down another corridor, her every sense assaulted by remembered details not from her own mind. The bite of the void, the cold of the metal under her feet, the distant screaming of ‘experiments’ and the smell of old blood. She shook her head, readjusting her focus directly ahead of her.

A narrow tear in the walls ahead allowed sunlight to filter in, a blinding break in the darkness.

K’Surda turned her head, peering at Vaylin behind her. The child was following, but not answering, her eyes were fixed on the break now. K’Surda glanced around quickly, keeping her tone firm and gentle, “you know him. Wouldn’t it be in his best interest to lie about your mother?”

Vaylin broke into a run, sprinting for the sunlight. K’Surda frowned, calling after her, “Vaylin, no!”

A swell of malevolence coalesced before the break and forced Vaylin back.  She stumbled and fell, scrambling away. K’Surda rushed towards it, lightning dancing along her arms. She was getting _sick_  of dealing with him.

“All she wants is a weapon, Vaylin! You would be manipulated by this outsider?” Valkorion crowed, his face half swallowed in shadow.

K’Surda threw her arms forward and fired a blast of lightning at him. It stung the air and seemed to push back the oppressive forces at work for just a few seconds. Valkorion broke apart like smoke, laughing.

The break was gone.

“You said there was a way out…” 

K’Surda turned quickly to see Vaylin sat against the corridor wall, knees drawn up and head in her hands. Her eyes were wide, wild, searching every present shadow. She was struggling to remember she wasn’t really a child here.

Walking over, K’Surda knelt in front of her and laid a hand on her shoulder. The other went to her chin and carefully moved Vaylin to look up and meet her eyes. “There is,” she said firmly. “I wouldn’t be here if there wasn’t. I’d still be under his influence and killing his enemies. You _can_  find a way back. It’s only harder because you were younger than me. But I swear to you, it _isn’t_  impossible. I’m not leaving your side until we find a way out.”

Vaylin stared at her for a long moment, swallowing hard. She looked like she wanted to bolt, lose K’Surda in these labyrinthine memories of Nathema, but eventually she nodded and got to her feet.

K’Surda nodded back and stood, holding out her hand for Vaylin to hold like a tether. Vaylin stared at the offer for several agonising seconds before taking it. “Good,” K’Surda murmured, smiling stiffly. She looked down either end of the corridor and continued down the same direction. There was a split in three directions, beyond where the break had been.

_“For someone who has renounced the Order, you are remarkably well muzzled by their childish quest for mercy.”_

She narrowed her eyes at his voice but gave him no attention. Vaylin tightened her grip on K’Surda’s hand and they kept walking until they reached the split.

Looking down at the girl, K’Surda took a calming breath. “Okay, try to remember again. Try to reach back and remember what came before.”

Vaylin closed her eyes, reaching out with her senses to find a memory older than Nathema. It would be brighter, calmer–happier. It should stand out like a star once they got close enough to the real one. The break just now was a ruse by _him_.

The child turned her head to their left, eyes opening. “This way.”

K’Surda nodded, gently squeezing her hand as they started to walk again. “We’ll get there, I promise. I’m not abandoning you to him.”


	7. First Steps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vaylin finds a way out and K’Surda finally wakes up.

“Go!” K’Surda called over her shoulder, firing another blast of lightning down the hallway. It drove back the shadows coming on like a wave for but a moment. “I’ll hold him back!”

She heard Vaylin run towards the break, a bright tear that burned back the rust and blood of  this accursed place. It spilled warmth across the metal and pushed back the void, it’s hunger beaten into submission.

A stream of lightning fired from the shadows and slammed into her, seizing her momentarily. K’Surda screamed and exerted her will, diffusing the attack like the breaking of a shell around her. Valkorion wasn’t laughing any longer. He snarled in annoyance and fired again.

K’Surda threw her arms forward and caught it in her palms. Her forearms went numb and she stepped back to brace herself, pushing against his attack.

 _“She is nothing more than a broken animal, wild and uncontrollable!”_ His flickering silhouette strode from the darkness, arm outstretched as he continued to pour lightning towards her. “ _My efforts were only a muzzle and still she threatened the galaxy!”_ He continued his approach, eyes glowing like shards of molten metal. “ _You think this a mercy, but your precious Sith will be the first to die if you let Vaylin escape!”_

Her blood boiled and she roared, harnessing her rage and the energy he was throwing at her into a lance. She pushed back with a strength that took him by surprise and threw a dense spire of energy at him. It speared through his form and blew a hole wide enough to climb through. He instantly dissipated.

K’Surda clenched her hands, the feeling slowly trickling back. “Neither of us are yours to control anymore!” she yelled, baring her teeth.

Light flooded the hall behind her and K’Surda turned her head. Vaylin must have entered the break, because it glowing brighter, flaring outwards.

Valkorion slammed into her, eletricity burning into her arms, her chest. Her scar throbbed with ghost pains. “You are a _fool!_ ” he snarled, bearing down her. K’Surda met his eyes and pushed her hand against his throat, gripping tight as her palm crackled. “Better that than finishing your work for you!”

Golden energy exploded down the hall and washed over them both, forcing Valkorion to retreat with an enraged howl.

Warmth, shock, the breath was knocked out of her and she stumbled forwards. She fell to the floor, Nathema fell away– _wake up._

K’Surda lurched awake, gasping for air. She flailed to sit up, awkwardly tangling herself in the sheets.

Steady hands grabbed her, cradling her face. Another pair pushed at her arm and shoulder, firmly but gently.

She blinked several times and registered Lana’s face staring down at her, deeply worried. The concern washed over her like the waves of a warm sea and she embraced it, relaxing in Lana’s grasp.

“What happened?”

K’Surda flicked her eyes to her side. Senya was the one holding her shoulder, looking just as worried. She turned her head away from them both to see Vaylin still unconscious in the bed next to her.

Swallowing, K’Surda managed a light and tentative smile. “I think… I think I found the way to help her.”

A sliver of hope immediately settled in Senya’s eyes. “How?”

Nodding to Lana, K’Surda sat up and both of them let go of her. Lana didn’t move away however, settling on the edge of the cot and just watching her for signs of ill-health. K’Surda rubbed her face slowly, feeling exhausted. “I broke out of Valkorion’s control before because my old master reminded me who I was before and helped me break out of the hateful cycle he kept running me through. I figured if I tried to do the same with Vaylin it would have the same effect.” She lifted her head, smiling tiredly as she continued, “only I’m not a force ghost and she was younger when he started to mess her up, so it was a lot harder.”

“But you found a memory?”

“Yeah, she ran to it and there was an explosion of light. It seemed to banish him from her head.”

“Do you… know what memory it was?”

“It smelled of grass and woodlands, floral. I could hear avians calling to each other and laughter, young and what sounded like an older woman. I just assumed it was you…”

Senya appeared stricken, pressing a hand over her mouth. She blinked rapidly and averted her eyes, nodding. “I…” she coughed and cleared her throat. “I took her outside often to find wood, she enjoyed whittling.”

Nodding slowly, K’Surda swallowed her own swell of emotion, trying to clear everything that just happened. “Well, she has a starting point now. She’ll need a lot of help, _a lot_  of regular, consistent help.”

Senya just nodded, having no more strength for words as she walked around to Vaylin’s bedside.

K’Surda sighed deeply and Lana gently stroked a hand against her cheek. Before she could ask anything, Lana leaned down and pressed a kiss to her brow. 

“ _I thought I told you never to worry me like that again.”_

With a sad smile, K’Surda slipped her arms around Lana and hugged her as tight as she dared. “ _I tried…?_ ”

Lana hugged her back just as hard, but said nothing more.


	8. Hello, Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> K’Surda returns from Zakuul in the wake of Valkorion’s utter annihilation to find Vaylin has awoken from her coma.

Lana insisted she be seen to and K’Surda didn’t fight it, but she did stress her check-up be done in the same medbay Vaylin was recovering in.

She was awake. Quiet and avoiding eye contact but awake.

Lokin finished checking K’Surda over, giving her a mild kolto injection to soothe the bone bruises and deep muscle contusions. Valkorion hadn’t been gentle before he smothered her, but this was the last time she would ever have to feel his physical effect on her. It would fade, as would the memory, with time.

“Leave us.” She slipped off the examination table and fixed her stare on Vaylin.

“Commander.” Senya stood up from kneeling by her daughter, mild worry creasing her brow.

 _Are you sure…?_  Lana’s tone was harder, still not entirely convinced Vaylin was safe to be around, but willing to trust her judgement. K’Surda crossed the bay to place a hand on Senya’s shoulder, offering a sincere smile. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt her.”

Senya blinked, jolting out of her unease. “I… sorry, Commander, of course.” She glanced over her shoulder, unable to truly shake her concern–a mother couldn’t help her feelings. But she nodded nonetheless. “I’ll be just outside, please… be gentle.”

She left with Lokin in tow, striking up a distracting conversation to help ease her worries. The two guards at the door stepped outside and Lana was the last to leave, sending her a final, guarded look before the door closed.

Silence fell thick around them and K’Surda moved to dig through her battered armour, pulling a small bundle from her satchel. It fit easily in her hand and she crossed the room again to sit across from Vaylin on the bed next to hers.

Vaylin didn’t look at her, dressed in a simple gown, her hair loose and eyes dull as she stared at her hands in her lap. Her eyes were still orange but not so molten or harsh.

The ink crawled all the way up her arms to her shoulders, a dark expanse that disappeared beneath her gown. K’Surda frowned lightly, wondering about the symbolism and what twisted meaning the tattoos really held. Their presence and purpose would mean everything for a while, as tangible as stone, as fresh as newly spilt blood.

K’Surda looked down at herself, the vest she wore did little to hide the vicious, scrawling scar he left her with. She set the bundle aside and silently pulled her vest off, folding it.

A look was sent her way, from the corner of the eye, neutral for just a second before a spark of recognition settled there.

K’Surda said nothing, watching Vaylin’s eyes trace the scar and the scattered hints of it under her skin the further it went from the centre. She blinked slowly and her eyes dropped to the patch of purple scarring on K’Surda’s abdomen just under the ribs.

“Arcann…” she muttered.

K’Surda kept her voice low. “Yes.”

Vaylin slowly looked up until she met K’Surda’s stare and K’Surda could only feel confident that she’d done the right thing. There was nothing to be gained from more death now. It was over.

A swell of something nearly intangible reached out and brushed her senses, probing, curious, and almost skittish. K’Surda opened herself to it, letting Vaylin freely feel her out if it helped her to open in turn.

There was a mild pang of worry from Lana but K’Surda soothed it. Nothing was going wrong, yet.

Like she was reading an old book, Vaylin leafed through page after page, seeing K’Surda’s life from padawan to knight to broken jedi. She slowed there, fear colouring her presence as she turned over the rocks of those memories, worn smooth and half buried in sand.

K’Surda breathed deep and slow, finding her newfound calm hard to shake.

Vaylin moved on, picking through her memories of struggle and rejection, abuse and abandonment, the losses of dignity, identity and trust. Trust in others and herself.

But as Vaylin kept going the memories began to shift and change. An uphill battle without a doubt, like crawling up a cliff in sleet and howling winds that wrenched the feeling from her hands. Nonetheless, K’Surda climbed.

She rediscovered purpose and trust, found a reason to keep going beyond whims and fear, and finally reclaimed an identity for herself.

K’Surda exhaled slowly and picked up the bundle, holding it out for Vaylin. She took it, frowning lightly, and unwrapped it. Her eyes opened wide and her hands froze, staring at the small wooden carving from her childhood. But it was only for a second. 

She picked it up, tracing the grooves around its head with a distant look of nostalgia.

Leaning on her knees, K’Surda spoke quietly, “no matter how or when you rebuild, I need you to know that it’s possible. It  _can_  be done, no matter how much he wanted us to think it couldn’t be.”

Vaylin put the carving down and looked at her, a sliver of fear crossing her face. “He’s gone,” she said flatly, frowning in confusion. “I can’t feel him at all. You really… [did it](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9166042).”

K’Surda simply nodded and Vaylin blinked, looking down at the carving again. She brushed her thumb over its head. “What now?”

Sighing, K’Surda straightened and offered a wry smile. “You find a place to start, but you’ll have help. I’m not going to pull you out of the ocean just to drop you on an empty island.”

“But where do I start?”

“Are you hungry?”

Vaylin frowned at that, thrown for a loop as she sent K’Surda a bewildered look. K’Surda’s smile warmed and she asked again, “are you hungry?”

Vaylin opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again. “Yes…”

Nodding, K’Surda grabbed her vest and slipped it on, getting to her feet. “Good, because so am I. I’ll see what I can scrouge up and bring it here, sound good?”

Vaylin blinked slowly, nodding. “Yes… thank you.”

K’Surda nodded back and walked from the medbay, fully aware the thanks were for far more than the pending meal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [SCREAMS] Ahem, so my love-hate relationship with SWTOR fell more into the hate camp and I haven't played since the last chapter of KOTET. I haven't done Iokath but I've seen videos of pieces of it and I'm just... shrugs???? about the whole thing at this point. Anyway. Vaylin deserved better, etc etc


End file.
